The Theoretical Perspectives on Group Development Case Study

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Despite the extensive coverage of the issue in the academic literature, group dynamics remain among the issues that are overlooked by the management. The following paper aims at exploring the applicability of the theoretical perspectives on group development learned during the course. Therefore, the case study has two major goals. First, it will actualize the knowledge obtained from the studied material and improve the understanding of implementing the existing group development theories in the workplace setting. Second, it will improve the analytical skills required for an effective field practice in the future.

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In addition, it is expected that the outcomes observed as a result of the analysis would provide useful conclusions about the principles of intra-group interactions and, hopefully, evaluate the relevance of the alternative perspectives for the observation content. Thus, aside from the general educational purpose, the case study may be useful as an insight into the potential shortcomings of the leadership practices and ways of addressing them.

Method

The case study is based on the observation of group in a workplace setting. Such an approach prioritizes the discovery and identification of phenomena rather than the confirmation of a specific research hypothesis. Therefore, the observation is exploratory in nature and requires only a generalized overview and a relatively flexible approach to result in logging. Besides, observation offers the advantage of including a diverse range of information, which can be later utilized in multiple analyses. The gathered data usually describes the interaction in its entirety and includes both extensive and intensive information. Such an approach makes it possible to gain an understanding of the workplace culture and subject the findings to interpretation through several theoretical perspectives.

The results of the observations are analyzed using the most common group development theories in order to identify the main stages of team’s evolution. In addition, several alternative frameworks, such as the factor of group development across time, are utilized to gain insights into the motivation behind the specific behavioral patterns. It should be pointed out that while the goals were set prior to the commencing of the observations, the scope and focus of the process were not limited to a specific perspective, and the in-depth approaches were chosen in the process in order to maximize the coverage and eliminate the potential limiting factors.

The group chosen as a subject was the team of employees selected for working on the small-scale IT project. The project was oriented at public information and thus was consistent with the specialization of the majority of the involved members, who specialized in education and public information. The observations were conducted during the regular team meetings as well as the time following the events to reach the necessary timespan of four hours.

A total of nine observations were performed. The number was chosen in accordance with the expected dynamics of the group development and aimed at covering the most likely development stages outlined by the course. Several inquiries were made after the observation in order to clarify the hypothesized factors behind certain events. All the inquiries covered the information necessary for the observer to reach conclusions and available to the field researcher not restricted by the time limits.

Observation

The first team meeting was relatively one-sided. The people gathered in the room were expressing their interest regarding the oncoming project. Interestingly, some of them were clearly better informed than others. At least two members were heard explaining the most likely scenarios for the intended project and provided details that were probably derived from their previous experience in the organization.

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Two members were genuinely interested and asked several specific questions regarding the support of the project by the organization’s administration and stated that they believe the identified goal of increasing transparency of the information aligns well with the direction observed in the company’s corporate social responsibility program. Most of the members were less active and made only a few comments on their readiness to contribute to the good cause. The non-verbal communication elements suggested that the group was relaxed and interested in the oncoming activities. No signs of anxiety related to uncertainty were detected.

Upon her entry, the leader was able to gain and maintain the attention of the group. She properly introduced herself and triggered a round of introductions by the group members, focusing on their proficiencies and past experience. She then made a transition, effectively tying the presented information to the goals of the project. She explained the intentions of the organization to create an accessible and user-friendly resource that would allow the public access to the information and make it more approachable through the automated generation of visual aids. She then proceeded to outline the objectives and accompanied the explanation by the description of individual benefits for the participants.

Several members of the group voiced their agreement with the leader’s suggestions, and one employee (the one who showed proficient knowledge on the details of the project) asked several questions regarding the deadlines and technical specifications of the process. Aside from that, the audience was receptive to the information and showed no issues with accepting the information.

After the meeting, the group discussed the received information. The majority was clearly inspired by the outlined possibilities and was not concerned with the stated objectives and the identified timeframe. The dominant comments made on the value of the project centered on the valuable IT experience, the possibility to gain proficiency in the perspective field, the improvements in the public perception, and, most often, the opportunity to later use the developed resource for individual benefits.

Interestingly, all of the identified reasons coincided with those suggested by the team leader. It is also worth noting that while the “ice-breaking” questions were asked during the technical part of the meeting, the majority of the participants did not follow the route and chose to remain silent despite the likely fact that they were less familiar with the planned activities than the employee who was actively inquiring upon the case. Overall, the impression was that the team members were excited about the oncoming project but were unsure of what challenges could emerge or whether the objectives were realistic.

During the subsequent meetings, the enthusiasm was noticeably toned down. The members were still attending the meetings regularly and displayed a high degree of attention when the progress recap and summary was conducted, but there was little evidence that the information was either meaningful or satisfactory for the team. Starting from the third meeting, when it apparently became clear that the team would be unable to meet at least one of the milestones set by the management, two people stepped in with the criticism of the plan and implied that it was “unreasonable to expect that such thing could be done in the first place.”

During the following meeting, one of them brought up the issue of the meeting by asking the leader whether it was wise to expect the completion of the visual aid segment in such a short amount of time. The leader was evidently dissatisfied with such turn of events (likely due to the fact that this was the first statement of such kind in four meetings) and immediately countered with a sharp response that the objectives, deadlines, and milestones were presented to the team from the beginning and brought up on each meeting and were generally agreed upon by the entire team. At this point, the second member stepped in and pointed to the fact that the majority of the participants lacked the understanding of the requirements of their works and that “it is really not that clear what the final product is expected to look like.”

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This allegation was then countered by another team member, who suggested that while the goal is certainly challenging, it would be inappropriate to characterize it as impossible, and the team was certainly more proficient in succeeding in the project than suggested by the first speaker. He then pointed to the achievements already made by the group and added that, on some occasions, the density of the required work is indeed more challenging than initially estimated.

This meeting also marked the shift in attitudes and behaviors of the majority of participants. In the discussion following the meeting, several members stepped out and expressed their doubts regarding the goals and explained that they were confused over the requirements set for some of the project’s elements. The same employee that was critical about the milestones immediately reacted by saying, “I wonder whether this is a leadership problem,” although it should be mentioned that his assertion was not immediately met with support. Instead, two more members shared their experience of encountering difficulties during the working process and asked whether it would be professional to bring such issues up during the following meeting.

On the fifth session, the leader suggested reviewing the objectives in an attempt to determine whether some of them require readjustment. This suggestion was met with unanimous agreement. However, it soon became apparent that the team was severely behind schedule and almost every objective was described as overly optimistic by at least one member. The team was apparently discouraged by their performance and the emerging barriers, and one member asked whether it would be acceptable to consider the project successful under the condition that “the goals are met at, say, 80 percent.”

She was supported by another member who described the idea as a “fair result.” When inquired for the reason of lowered expectations, the participants described several instances where they were unable to understand the exact requirements of the project. The phrase “I don’t know what to do” was used at least three times, each time by a different member. One of the technicalities was resolved by a more experienced group member who, as it turned out, had the same issue before and was able to find a solution. The leader also tried to clarify on the expected qualities of the final product in an attempt to minimize the ambiguity pointed out by the group. However, the attempt was unsuccessful since the description essentially repeated the information presented during the first meeting.

This was immediately pointed out by the team member who was vocal regarding the leader’s shortcomings during the previous sessions. He explained that some of the phrases did not add clarity to the issue and only exploited “the vague descriptions of quality and value.” After the meeting, the issue of lack of intragroup interaction was brought up in the informal conversation by two of the members. One of them was apparently dissatisfied with the state of communication between the group members. She described the situation as “several skilled people working in isolation” and expressed her doubts that such situation allows “to describe the project as a team effort.”

Her companion supported her concerns and added that the recent solution provided by the experienced team member described above was “probably the sole instance of effective teamwork in the entire project to date.” The discussion was not supported by the rest of the participants although it is probable that it was heard by the people in the room, including the one who was making the counterdependent remarks during the two previous sessions.

It should be said that the issue of collaboration was implicitly addressed by the leader starting from the next session. Technical issues and difficulties eventually became the central point of the meetings. The feedback of the employees was encouraged, with the possibly equal amount of time given to each participant of the discussion. The problem was then discussed by the group, and a mutually satisfying solution was ruled out.

Notably, on many occasions, the solution was either provided or noticeably improved by the two members who were noticeably more experienced than the rest. This was recognized and criticized by one of them, who was heard saying “I don’t mind that [the other member] is providing the solutions for half of the team, but wouldn’t it be fair to recognize his role and give him more credit?” Notably, neither of the contributors expressed explicit hostility regarding the situation and did not try to present the situation as generally unfavorable for the project.

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The last two sessions were conducted with a noticeably higher degree of cooperation and in a more professional atmosphere overall. The statements made during these sessions focused on the execution of the specific tasks and the performance of the team as a whole. It should be mentioned that by week 9 the team was still behind schedule, and most of the milestones were not met, although there were signs of improvement.

The leader addressed the situation by explaining that if the newly taken pace could be maintained, the project could be completed on time and would meet all the requirements. The majority of interactions between team members at this point were mostly on the issues related to work. The members often expressed their enthusiasm over a specific activity and gladly offered advice to others who were stranded over a difficult point. Two notable exceptions from this trend are worth pointing out.

First, the issue of interaction was openly brought up at least on two occasions, in both cases in the positive context. The first time, one of the members voiced his satisfaction that the group was “finally working together towards the goal.” While the phrase was not commented upon, there was no sign of disagreement from the peers, including the initially counterdependent member. In the second instance, one of the employees expressed gratitude for the provided help and added: “I think we make good partners.” The second team member agreed and suggested to return to the tasks at hand, effectively returning to the professional setting.

Finally, a noteworthy shift in opinions was observed roughly at this time, during a conversation between the counterdependent member and the participant who countered his claims about the unrealistic goals several weeks earlier. In the discussion about the particularly challenging segment of work, the latter referenced the described incident and suggested that the issue at hand is an example of the task which required more work than planned by the management.

He then suggested that “this is an example of the work which made our project look unrealistic several weeks ago.” The former immediately recognized the reference and replied that this is “certainly not the case anymore.” While no attention was paid to this episode by the peers, there are reasons to believe that it was a turning point in the attitudes of the team member in question.

Unfortunately, the time constraints did not allow proceeding with the observation until the end of the project, which was scheduled in two months from the week nine. Additional inquiries were made regarding the prior experience of certain members. As expected, some of them had previous experience of working together on other projects.

Theoretical Perspectives

The observed group dynamics are consistent with the theory of group development suggested by Bennis and Shepard (1956). It should be noted that the timeframe of the observation does not allow us to arrive at a definitive conclusion as it does not include the information from its entire lifespan, and only the first stage can be identified with the high degree of certainty. Nevertheless, it is also possible to determine the probable transition to the second phase as well as the prerequisites of the third subphase.

The behavior of the leader during the first meeting is appropriate and contains all the necessary elements to provide the feelings of safety and direction to the members (Wheelan, 2016). She also clearly succeeded at enhancing the familiarity between the group members by providing the necessary information. However, the informal conversation held after the meeting suggests the immediate lack of understanding of the specific objectives of the project. Since one of the members made several clarifications and was not supported by the others, it would be unfair to say that the ice was not broken.

The most probable reason for the lack of understanding was the lack of clarity on the part of the leader and her erroneous attribution of the lack of questions to the complete understanding of the information by the audience. The eventual decline of enthusiasm observed in the team was probably due to the overdependence on the leader which did not correspond to her actual involvement. Most likely, the members were expecting to be guided by the leader and attributed the shortcomings to the lack of guidance and no sense of direction. Overall, the team demonstrated dependency on the leader through unchallenging behavior and lack of the proactive stance.

Roughly at this time, the first counterdependent behavior was identified. The phrase “it is unreasonable to expect that such thing could be done in the first place” is a clear iteration of such behavior, and the subsequent attribution of the result to the leader’s qualities is a resentment of the authority characteristic for the counterdependents’ common strategies (Bennis & Shepard, 1956).

This change coincided with the disillusionment caused by the constant underperformance and the failure to meet the intermediary objectives. It is also notable that by this time there was little evidence of collaboration between team members and no effort to promote it from the leader, although it would be reasonable to expect the attempts to establish relationships at the dependence-flight subphase (Bennis & Shepard, 1956).

The criticism voiced at meetings four and five was the result of a dilemma that emerged after the leader was unable to explain the team’s goals in concrete terms. The leader’s sharp reaction could be attributed to the fact that she falsely interpreted the evident optimism and lack of questions to the sufficient competence and understanding without acknowledging the factor of being a designated leader and the lack of challenge on this stage (Wheelan, 2016).

It is also evident that at this point the search for personal safety, characteristic for the first stage of development, is being challenged, which is one of the requirements for the transition towards the surviving stage two (Wheelan, 2016). Team members realize that their individual proficiencies are insufficient for satisfactory performance and that they cannot relocate their responsibility onto the leader.

The subsequent criticism of the two members is probably an instance of counterdependence-fight subphase (Bennis & Shepard, 1956). Interestingly, the formation of the counterdependent group was not observed despite being common at this stage. While the exact reason for this is unclear, it is possible to attribute it to the underrepresentation of the counterdependents in the group, which prevented such developments.

Another notable issue that can be traced back to the staffing specificities is the apparent lack of the pairing statements throughout the observation. The sole instance when such statements were logged was closer to the end of the observation when the situation was described as “finally working together towards the goal,” and the assertions were made that the members “make good partners.”

Importantly, these statements were voiced late in the group development and were aligned with the common behaviors at that time – in other words, they were not initiative in the true sense. It is possible to assume that such situation is explained with the lack of overpersonals in the group – the individuals who are initially oriented towards establishing intimate contact with as many peers as possible. Therefore, the pairing statements can be considered a comment on the situation in the team rather than an attempt to establish new relationships.

Starting from week seven, the leader clearly shifted the perspective towards promotion of the collaboration between members. Such shift can at least partially be attributed to the apparent success of the actions assisted by the two members who were more experienced with the task. The strategy was proven to be successful, both in terms of overall increase in performance and as an improvement of the intragroup emotional climate.

At this phase, the counterdependents (the vocal critics of the leader’s qualities) lost their authority and eventually adopted an interdependent position initially propagated by one of their opponents. The agreement reached between them was likely the result of resorting to a compromise solution when it became apparent that neither the dependent nor the counterdependent stance provided one (Wheelan, 2016).

In addition, it should be pointed out that the work statements were prevalent at this stage, which signifies the establishment of the highly professional atmosphere within the team, likely caused by the clarification of goals, the buildup of competence, and the improvement in results contributing to self-esteem. Interestingly, the interdependent behavior could be observed in the group starting from week four, particularly during the first discussion of the alleged impossibility of meeting the objectives. Besides, the team members who were the most active in providing the effective solutions to the team were displayed the least dissatisfaction with either the group or the leader from the start. This was especially evident during their discussion of the lack of recognition that is a common trigger of such criticisms (Wheelan, 2016).

The absence of fight statements and a clear focus on work was characteristic for these members and was eventually adopted by the rest of the team. Essentially, such behavior can be considered surpassing the expected pace of the group development (although it was not adopted by the rest of the team until later in the course of the project). This was initially attributed to the fact that they had previous experience of working together (and later confirmed by the inquiry). Such phenomenon is consistent with the perspective suggested by Wheelan, Davidson, and Tilin (2003) that the members of the group who have more time spent together are less prone to voicing fight and dependency statements and more predisposed towards work statements. While this factor had no observable influence on the earlier stages, it may be viewed as a decisive factor in the transition towards the reorganizing stage.

As was explained earlier, the observation does not cover the entire span of the project. Nevertheless, the observed dynamics suggest that by week nine the group was on its way to the interdependent stage. The rise in performance, mutual trust, and the decline of conflicting behaviors are consistent with this suggestion.

Conclusion

The results of the observations’ analysis align well with the theoretical perspectives learned during the course. The dynamics demonstrated by the group were consistent with the expected course of action. The roles adopted by the participants coincided with the models suggested by Bennis and Shepard (1956). The results of the leader’s shortcomings produced the outcomes outlined by Wheelan (2016) and were later resolved by the collective effort of the leader and the experienced members of the team.

Minor deviations, such as the early emergence of the interdependent statements, the notable lack of pairing statements, and the absence of division into dependent and counterdependent parties was attributed to the previous experience of certain group members and the disproportionate representation of specific member types, respectively. Based on the current information, it is reasonable to conclude that the team successfully transitioned to the interdependent phase, but the lack of data from the final stages of the project makes it impossible to reach the definitive conclusions.

Overall, the observation can be considered successful as an exercise in group development diagnostics and a valuable application of the knowledge gained during the course. The most significant limitation of the case study was the inability to conduct an observation throughout the entire project’s lifespan. Therefore, a more comprehensive observation would be necessary to replicate the results and confirm the initial suggestions.

References

Bennis, W. G., & Shepard, H. A. (1956). A theory of group development. Human Relations, 9(4), 415-437.

Wheelan, S. A. (2016). Creating effective teams: A guide for members and leaders (5th ed.). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications.

Wheelan, S. A., Davidson, B., & Tilin, F. (2003). Group development across time: Reality or illusion? Small Group Research, 34(2), 223-245.

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